


Bound By

by A Passing Housewife (flourchildwrites), Tasia (ruikosakuragi)



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon Universe, Drama, F/M, Hope, Red String of Fate, Regret, Romance, rated M for future chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 23:10:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20479013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flourchildwrites/pseuds/A%20Passing%20Housewife, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ruikosakuragi/pseuds/Tasia
Summary: The red thread of fate works in mysterious ways, binding two souls regardless of time, place, or circumstance.  A single fiber altered can unravel the universe, but the ties that bind Riza Hawkeye and Roy Mustang are everlasting, in this life or any other.





	Bound By

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Riza Hawkeye day! We’re excited to share 10 stories, each an exploration of Royai around carefully selected themes set in different universes, including canon. Every one of these chapters can be read as a stand-alone, though they will converge in the final chapter. Many thanks to **areyousanta** for the lovely commissioned art!

Riza's eyes fluttered open. Her pale lashes fanned up and out, catching the light of the eastern sunrise as it streamed through her bedroom window. Though her delicate features hinted that she was only 23, her face was darkened by sullen chestnut irises and deep lines permanently etched underneath her eyes. She rose from her restless slumber and heeded the call of her alarm clock.

The bell sounded, shrill and abrasive, but armed with the knowledge that there were things to do, Riza resisted the temptation to slip back underneath her eiderdown comforter. Through a pair of bleary eyes, she scanned the bland contents of her East City bedroom. Simple, inexpensive pieces of furniture were backed against panels of pale blue wallpaper that curled around the edges like pieces of moth-eaten parchment. Her belongings were scattered throughout the room. A book she hadn't finished rested on her bedside table, and a pair of weather-worn tennis shoes were slung over the back of her desk chair, tied together by their laces.

Only one belonging stood out: her uniform. The woolen fabric was expertly pressed with severe creases running down the pant legs. Her aiguillette's tight plait stood was bright, yellow and neat, meticulously picked free of any stray threads. Polished black boots stood at attention underneath the ensemble and gleamed in the morning light.

Yet, Riza didn't notice her uniform as muscle memory obliged her to follow her daily routine to the letter. After a predictable open and shut of her top dresser drawer and a shuffle of clothes, she readied herself for her morning run, avoiding her vanity mirror as well as the look of her hands, metaphorically dirty and damaged. As she slipped on her tennis shoes, she could no longer avoid the thread tied tightly around her little finger. Its dull color took her by surprise.

Riza couldn't remember the last time she looked at it, the red string that only she could see.

As a child she had been entranced by its permanence, tugging and pulling, reeling in the cord until she could reach the end. When the end never came, she had growled in frustration and came bounding into her mother's private library, one thousand and one questions at the tip of her finger.

The bedridden Elizabeth Hawkeye had had a curious fascination with the supernatural, wishing she had been acquainted with the dead, hoping she had been born a hundred years sooner. Riza wasn't sure what had come first: this obsession or her sickness. Or if one had driven the other. But Elizabeth's strange, little preoccupation had led to a curated collection of _parapsychologie_ texts and thick, colorful tomes of folktales, rivaling her own scholar husband's accumulation of scientific books.

In one of these, Riza had discovered the Xingese tale of the deity _Yuè Xià Lǎorén._ She could still remember the beautiful cursive, rolling on the yellow-aged paper as though it had been handwritten with care, "_Two people who are connected by the red string are bound together by Fate itself_." The next thing she realized, she had voluntarily reported her findings to her father, who had returned her excitement with an unkind-set of emerald eyes and disgust stitched on the seam of his mouth.

"It was her overly active imagination," Elizabeth had said, her warm words coming to her aid, "nothing to worry about."

Her father had huffed with disdain, proceeding to rain down vicious words about Elizabeth's nonsensical readings. If there was one thing Riza Hawkeye loathed to see, it was her mother's defeat, with Berthold Hawkeye in the center of the tribunal, accusing. Condemning.

Since that day, Riza had vowed to never acknowledge the string's existence. She would go on, day after day, pretending as if she was like any other children. Normal. Happy. Unbound by the scarlet thread. Then a boy of twelve knocked on her door, dark features tempered by a bright smile and a fervent gaze. He was there to learn alchemy, he said. And when Riza looked down, the same red string was looped around his little finger. She continued to keep her secret to herself, but she didn't feel so alone anymore.

Now, as Riza stared at it with knitted brows, she wondered what had paled its lucidity. Perhaps it was her wayward emotions, running higher and higher by the hour. Perhaps it was age, or the frighteningly steady rate she had been losing weight. The string then tightened itself around her finger. Contracting, slackening, then contracting again until she could paint the imaginary white line along her skin.

Perhaps it was Roy? Or Ishval?

Commemorated on every Amestrian newspaper today, the headline large and in bold font: _"The Anniversary of the Civil War: The Flame Alchemist to Address the Nation."_

The nation had dubbed him the Hero of Ishval at the end of the war, and the entire country had clapped and rejoiced.

If only they could share the sentiment.

The nightmare of four years ago snatched her sanity. It stole her desire for life, dangling it in front of her face only to pull away before she could reach it. She learned Roy suffered the same.

When Riza returned from her morning run, she quickly slid out of her drenched cotton shirt, tossing the garment into the laundry basket. She dragged herself into the shower. She made breakfast. Ate. Left the dishes in the sink for later that night. A deceptively comforting routine. Then she went to work.

But as she stepped into the office at precisely 8:30 a.m. that morning, everyone had disappeared.

With her heart pumping against her chest, Riza peered out the window. She found her fellow soldiers assembled on the courtyard, like ants huddling close to lift up a large grain of rice. A concrete platform rose before them, confronting its audience like a grand pedestal in a temple of war, a blue and gold throne awaiting its king. Green banners bearing an argent dragon with claws outstretched were hoisted high. Their nation's flag fluttered ominously in the morning breeze, a silent call to attention that neither general nor infantryman could ignore.

A tremor shot through Riza's chest, rippling within her arms and releasing through her fingertips as she gripped the small ledge beneath the windowsill. Her breath caught, but only for a moment as the Hawk's Eye's lauded sniper instincts overtook the trepidation coursing through her veins. She was made of something stronger than flesh and bones, possessing an iron will that had seen her through far worse than this.

It was just a ceremony, a convenient photo-op to galvanize the nation's resolve, headlined by Eastern Command's local celebrity, the Flame Alchemist. It was just a speech, a few paragraphs of pretty words strung together by hollow sentiments such as nationalism and the affirmation that their violent actions had served a greater, grander good. Colonel Mustang would speak the words - carefully edited by Central Command. He would pose for a few photographs with Lieutenant Hawkeye standing sentry behind him, close by but never touching. The day would continue as planned, the usual paperwork piling up despite Team Mustang's best efforts. Eventually, it would end, Riza reminded herself, and she would do it all over again.

A firm tug pulled the young woman from her thoughts, and for a moment, Riza allowed herself to stare down at the ethereal source of tension. The faded red thread around her little finger had grown taut. Every knot and fray was exaggerated by the strain opposite the young woman, from the person Fate bound her to.

Once in Ishval, Riza had dignified the string long enough to attempt to sever the bond. She had taken a knife to the thread, then bathed in brutality and battered by the sand-swept landscape. The markswoman had shot at it, and even though her bullet had bitten into its mark, the string had emerged unscathed. Finally, she'd thought to tackle the problem at its source, to ask Roy Mustang to do his worst. But when he had looked later, soul aflame with purpose, and offered her a position under his command, Riza surrendered to what the deity of destiny had long divined.

She had decided to follow him in the space of a heartbeat, even into hell. And still, as an older, wiser Riza allowed herself to be guided by the red thread to his office, she reaffirmed her decision to spare Roy the worst detail of the damage they'd done to themselves. She chose to shoulder the regret of a great love that could not be fully lived as she knocked and thrust open his office door.

"Good morning, sir. I trust you-" Riza's words faltered as she took in the scene.

The woody scent of whisky hung heavy within the four corners of the colonel's private office, obliging Riza to cover her nose with the sleeve of her uniform. At a glance, the damage appeared minor. A stack of what was once well-ordered memoranda slumped over the side of Roy's desk, spilling onto the low pile of his ornate rug. Several of the texts from the bookcase covering the south wall were strewn over the plush chairs. But if the man himself was any indication, things were worse than they seemed.

Though sitting still on his leather couch with a stale drink in hand, Roy Mustang was lost. Riza saw it in the bags beneath his dark eyes and in the wrinkles of the white shirt he'd been wearing when she left him the night before. The stubble on his chin and cheeks was slow-growing, and thus barely noticeable; however, the tremor in his digits was bound to attract more attention than either his poor attire or his disheveled locks.

Only Riza saw the matching red thread tied tight around his pinky, connecting the pair as it had for as long as Riza had known him. The string's pull obliged her to step inside and quietly shut the door. He turned to look at his lieutenant and fixed her with a lazy, inebriated smile that she would have liked to know in simpler, less troubled moments.

"How do you always seem to know when and where I need you, Hawkeye?" he said lazily, allowing his head to fall back against the cushions. The amber liquid in his glass sloshed precariously back and forth.

_Because we're connected by a red string that only I can see_, she wanted to declare. Instead, she said, "Call it a woman's intuition. And we've been together for so long I know how you prefer the quiet of your office during this time of the year."

"And right you are, lieutenant. As always." He raised the glass in his hand, toasting the air and taking down the rest of the liquid in one big gulp.

Steadily, Riza bridged the miserable space between her and her colonel. "Let's go, sir." There was no judgment in her brown eyes, only the shared guilt and melancholia that fought for dominance and came out the victor every single year. "Everyone's already gathered by the courtyard. The day will be over before you know it."

Just like last year and the years before that, Roy Mustang allowed her to haul his limp body from the calm of his office to the men's restroom across the hallway. There was so much to rectify about him in so little time.

Riza often wondered what it would be like to be married. She would make their bed while her husband belted his opera voice from behind the bathroom door. Once he was out of the shower, his dark hair drenched and unkempt, she would help him shave, just as she was doing now, gliding a sharp blade until all was smooth and presentable. In the bedroom, she'd ruffle through their closet for a clean, pressed shirt. And as she dressed him, a smile would rocket past her lips whenever he'd tease her with his own dramatic brand of flattery, _"How would I survive without you, my dear wife?"_

Except she wore no smiles as she tugged on Roy's sleeves, buttoning down his dress shirt with deft fingers in taut silence. A small bottle of tonic in her hand, she pressed the rim to her palm and upended it in a swift motion. Raking her fingers through his hair, she thought she heard the barest hint of a chuckle, but she dismissed her musing and pressed a metal comb to tame a head of rebellious black strands.

They were lucky, she supposed, that no matter how hard either of them had tried, Mustang's hair had an independent streak. Even at the most formal banquets, stubborn strands fell forward, giving the colonel a roguish look that fit his public persona. This occasion was no different, and after a moment's work, Riza stood back to survey her craftsmanship. It was far from the first time she'd put the pieces of Roy Mustang back together, and she doubted that it would be the last.

He hardly glanced at himself in the mirror, silently trusting that his lieutenant had done her best to make him presentable. But the way he looked at her now, eyes soft with parted lips, made her believe that Roy had something to say. A chill traveled the length of Riza's spine as she imagined the liberties a lesser man might take. Drunken and miserable, alone with a woman who was always there but just beyond his reach. Most of their team already suspected something, she realized. Nevertheless, they kept quiet, silenced by the same sense of conviction that also prevented Roy from pinning Riza against the bathroom wall, seeking comfort in the curve of her neck and stripping away layer upon layer of reservation.

There were times, Riza admitted inwardly, she wanted him too.

Hawkeye took a step back.

"There should still be coffee in the mess hall," she pronounced, careful not to dignify the feelings that fizzled between them. "You should have some. I'll grab your things and meet you there."

Mustang did as he was told. From time to time, Hawkeye appreciated that he'd always been a little too good at following an order, whether it was hers, her father's, or the military's command. She found his jacket and slung it over the back of a chair. Her nimble fingers worked quickly, picking lint from creases in the stiff fabric and smoothing the wrinkles as best she could. For a final flourish, Riza repositioned the brass stars on his shoulders and straightened the Amestrian crest pinned to the collar.

The Flame Alchemist's war medals laid somewhere out of sight and mind. There would be no dress blues on the parade ground this morning. That order had come down from Führer Bradley himself. Such a sight was too reminiscent of the endless parade of funerals and memorial services that plagued the memory of nearly every citizen old enough to recall their nation's long string of conflicts. Outside the window of Roy's office, the crowd's murmur grew. Riza rushed out of the office and down the corridor and took the stairs two at a time.

"Ah, lieutenant," Colonel Mustang greeted as his adjunct hastily approached him.

His jacket hung limply over her arm, and Hawkeye clutched a copy of the colonel's speech in her right hand. Before questions could be asked, she handed both over, helping Roy slip his arms through the sleeves and securing the tricky hook near his collar. General Grumman stood silently by Roy's side. The white and yellow medals on the old man's chest glinted in the same morning light which caught the lenses of his glasses, effectively obscuring his eyes.

"We've been given the green light," a faceless private stated. Riza's pulse hammered in her throat.

"Well then," General Grumman hummed, sounding almost jovial. His stiff mustache barely twitched against the effort of speaking or smiling. "Lead the way, Colonel Mustang."

With one last glance back at Riza, Roy mounted the stairs leading to the platform, hands steady and back straight. The lieutenant followed in her colonel's footsteps, just behind him and to the right. Her sharp eyes swept the crowd dutifully. Her nerves were, as always, fine-tuned and ready to assess any possible threats.

As the red thread tightened painfully around Riza's finger, they did the jobs their country asked of them. No more. No less.

* * *

By the time Riza arrived home, dark clouds had chased the bits of white out of the moon. Her sparse and tiny living room was completely dark, and the familiar groans and murmurs - the whispering wood floor by the dining table, the rattling pipes within the walls - that accompanied four years of her life could not appease the foul mood that stalked her all the way back from Eastern Command.

Hastily, she tossed her black military coat onto its rack, stomping her way to the bathroom. The fabric fluttered to the ground, and she caught in the corner of her eyes. But a whirling of emotions had tightened its hold and spared no breathing room; all she yearned for was a stream of scalding hot water, praying it would wash away the grime of the day and inject some senses back into her.

Her afternoon firearm training was less than perfect, but the weapons instructor had shot her a pitiful smile and blamed it on the weather, knowing full well the Hawk's Eye had never missed. "It's too humid for all of us to be able to shoot properly. Your grip's probably stained with sweat," he had said.

The stack of reports awaiting completion never saw its outbox. Rather, it had towered past the crown of her head by the end of the day. Where was her efficiency today?

Pulling her form-fitting black shirt up and off, Riza could still smell the coffee stains that seeped into her garment from the afternoon flub in the mess hall. She stepped into the cloud of steam that had begun to fill the room, closing her eyes, combing her wet hair. If Roy had been there to see her little blunder, he would have sent her home.

She opened her eyes and peeked at her pinky finger. Her heart took a plunge, provoking a dull ache in her chest. The red string was hopelessly stained, as though it had been dipped in mud and left to soak its muck. The hot spray from Riza's showerhead passed through the twine but couldn't wash it clean. Like the raised lines of the tattoo on her back, the damage was now a part of her.

In a moment of weakness, Riza grasped at the thread, just as she had when she was a child, but panic replaced the wonder she once reveled in. Hand over hand, she reeled it in, feeling its rough consistency between her fingers - so different from the silky smooth texture she felt during her youth. Riza's eyes widened as she ran her thumb over a darkened patch, and a sharp intake of breath shuttered in her throat.

Burn marks. Singed fiber that inexplicably hadn't fallen to ruin.

Theirs was a tale of fire and sand, alchemist's chalk and gunpowder. They'd never be able to take it back, never able to wash their hands clean. And without absolution, their roles would remain static. She the catalyst, and he the reaction.

Hawkeye steeled her nerves. She let her head fall back as the warm water trickled down blotches of angry, scarred skin. Riza didn't bother to shield herself and allowed her markings to remain on display for whatever ethereal matchmaker had foretold a union plagued by the weight of Berthold Hawkeye's ego. Their uniforms covered all manner of sins, but the way she felt about Roy was worn so very close to her sleeve. There was nothing for it except to bare her feelings when she hoped no one was looking.

And, not for the first time, Riza wished to know for sure if their bond was as one-sided as sometimes it seemed.

She finished her shower and, never one who cared about the whims of fashion, pulled on an old pair of jeans with a button-down. The rigid collar pressed against the back of the young woman's neck, a subtle reassurance that her secrets remained under wraps. She went into the kitchen and filled her kettle, preparing to make a cup of tea. Something, anything to soothe her nerves.

When Riza finally steadied the tremble in her hand, gripping the arched handle with more strength than necessary, a successive rap at the door called for her attention. Two sharp knocks, followed by three quieter ones. The sequence was cryptic to anyone else but her.

She didn't bother reaching for the gun on the dining table. She knew exactly who was standing on the other side.

Cracking the door open, Riza unearthed a plain-clothed Roy Mustang in his usual formal attire - a herringbone-pattern suit with matching black trousers, an olive green vest underneath, wrapped around a torso that had shed too many pounds in a worryingly small amount of time. His hair was a messy mop of jet black, just the way she liked it, not styled in its pomade slick-back that gave off a particular aura of self-importance.

She slid her gaze up to meet his. His dark eyes were focused, sober, and yet they seemed so weary. "Colonel."

"Lieutenant."

She peered down. His hand held a dozen purple tulips, garnished with a smattering of baby's breaths. Roy lifted the bouquet and presented it to her, a fleeting of a smile. "For you."

Taking the flowers with hesitance, she reflexively dove the tip of her nose into the buds. A familiar honey scent wafted, conjuring up an image of her hometown: a lush backyard beneath a breezy spring morning.

She pushed the door open as an unspoken invitation to the man before her. "I was just about to make tea."

The colonel crossed into the threshold of her apartment. Heavy thuds sank into the depressed floorboard, shadowing him all the way to her kitchen. She watched his back, noting how it seemed to have shrunk in size after such a trying day. The red string attached to his little finger followed too, the drabness parading around, reminding her of her failures. The sight was unbearable.

The cabinet doors whined left and right as his quick hands searched for an empty vase. In that same moment, Riza rested the kettle on the burners, whisking the knob to low heat, her covert play at prolonging his stay. Her fingers swiped for a sealed, glass jar of chamomile tea from the cupboard above her.

A small bouquet of chamomile blooms had once wheedled its way onto young Roy's arm. He had thrust it into her hand in exchange for five minutes of her time. A short conversation with the quiet girl who always kept her thoughts to herself. That was all he wanted. Five minutes had rolled into one hour, to two, and then three.

Sometime in the three-hour block, Riza had told him purple tulips were her favorite flower; it symbolized royalty. When he asked her why, she allayed his curiosity by confessing that she'd always wanted to be the queen of her own kingdom. She was only ten then, an innocent dream borne from the pages of her late mother's tower of books. Roy had simply smiled, eyes solemn with understanding. At the end of the third hour, she had told him sheepishly that she'd taken a liking to his bouquet of chamomile, too.

"What would you like to talk about?" she asked, placing the tulips in their vase with a healthy dose of water. Her tone was as blunt as a battering ram.

Roy straightened up and shifted against the doorframe. "Nothing," he replied with a perplexed expression. "Do you think we should talk about something?"

She didn't respond right away and instead set the vase of flowers on the small kitchen table. Riza plunged her arm into an open kitchen drawer, retrieving two nondescript mugs and a plain teapot. The ceramic sounded against the wooden countertop as she placed the set down. Dull thuds disrupted the silence that had settled in the confines of her humble kitchen.

"Not necessarily," she babbled, caught off guard by the direct question. "I was just remembering the first time you gave me flowers and how you wanted to talk then."

Riza's torso pivoted, and with a subtle smile, she caught Roy's eye. At the mention of the memory, the hard set of his shoulders softened and the left corner of his mouth curved upward, culminating in a smirk that showcased a boyish dimple. Still, the focus of his dark eyes never wavered.

"It's been quite some time since I thought about that," he said. Like a liar. Roy cleared his throat, pulling at the collar of his dress shirt. "I just wanted to thank you for everything you did today and make sure you were feeling like yourself again."

At that, Hawkeye turned to face him, crossing her arms over her chest and fixing her childhood friend with an incredulous pair of eyes. The plain cotton of her shirt pulled against her chest. Damp patches of fabric stuck to the skin of her shoulders. Silently, Riza wished she'd taken the time to make herself more presentable; it would have given gravitas to her bluff. As if Roy was one to talk, in any case.

"I'm perfectly fine, _sir_," she responded curtly. Hawkeye brandished the honorific like a weapon, but found, as her colonel lazily drew near, that he hadn't come unarmed.

"That's not what your firearms instructor said or Breda, for that matter," he quipped. Roy's voice dipped annoyingly, intoxicatingly low. "How many times do I have to ask you to call me Roy when we're alone, Riza? I'm not here as your superior officer."

"But you are my superior officer, regardless. That's what we agreed upon, and whatever Breda or my instructor thinks, I am-"

"Fine?" he interrupted, cocking an eyebrow to emphasize his disbelief.

This was the part where Mustang's reputation preceded him. Even knowing Roy as she did, Riza half expected him to sidle up to her, run his fingertips along her sleeve, and caress the curve of her cheek. There were many pleasures the lieutenant knew they could find in one another. Some they'd enjoyed before, but nothing had happened since she'd taken her place under Mustang's command. Not physically, at least.

The red thread was taut, but rather than ease the tension by drawing near, the dwindling distance exaggerated the strain. The closer he came, the stronger the pull, and without willing herself to do so, Riza found herself caught by the current.

Roy had already stepped into her circle by the time she rediscovered her sensibility.

"Riza," he began. The heat of his presence billowed around her, and the room suddenly felt too hot.

"Have you ever felt like…" Roy paused, sucking in air through his teeth. "Have you ever felt like no matter how hard you try, you just can't get away from someone? Whatever it is you do to get away, it takes you right back to where you started?"

Her pulse quickened below her ear. "Sir?"

The unuse of his name twisted sorrow to his lips, striking her with a twinge of guilt. But Roy marched on, "Have you ever heard of the tale of _The Three Fates_, Riza?"

"I can't say I have."

"The first one spins the thread of destiny, the second dispenses it, and the third cuts it."

Riza stared wordlessly, big brown eyes anticipating.

"In the story, the three sisters have control over our destiny. No matter what one person does to break away from their path, the middle sister would always steer them right back on track."

"And what does this story have anything to do with the inability to get away from someone?"

"Ishval," Roy said so assuredly.

"Ishval?"

"Maybe we were both meant to be there."

Censure lined her expression, and she raised her voice in turn, "If this is your idea of comforting me, _sir_, then you should know you are doing one _hell_ of a job."

"No. That's not- That's not what I was trying to say at all," he growled in frustration, fingers raking through unkempt hair. "Both of us were sent to the front, Riza. And as much as we refuse to admit it, the war brought us back together. While we were there, you and I were sent to the _same_ district and placed in the _same_ platoon. They could have sent you to Kanda, and I wouldn't have known you'd been there at all!"

The cord of their connection tightened once again, and she flinched in the slightest.

Roy seemed to have noticed a shift about her, and the tension on his shoulders wilted considerably. His gaze softened, and he looked at her with a wistful smile, "Don't you see, Riza? I think that-" he paused, "I think that you and I were meant to be together."

She hauled in a deep breath and held it. Her apprehension did not come from the absurdity of his explication nor the suggestive nature of his speech, but rather from the shock at how close he came to the truth. But she tossed all suspicions aside as mere coincidence. If Roy had been able to see their string, he would have pointed it out a lifetime ago when everything was decidedly less complicated. And then maybe they could have been together.

At her silence, he resigned his gaze to the ceiling and shuffled his feet with unease. "I don't think I'm making much sense, huh?"

She shook her head.

Roy chuckled, a diffident hand reaching and brushing the length of her arm. "Forget about that then. Let's talk about something else."

"Like what?" she finally said.

"Like that one time I caught you writing a love letter," he supplied candidly.

She narrowed on his face. "What love letter?"

Roy bared his teeth with mischief, and with it, he drove out the awkwardness between them, replacing it with a glimpse of the past. "Remember that one summer I snuck into your room? I told you I needed to borrow an eraser, but I really didn't?"

At once, her brain thumbed through a leaflet of memories. "Right. You admitted you were bored. And then what happened?"

"I was hovering over your back and read some of the stuff you were writing," he teased. "You don't remember? 'For the last few weeks, I have been attempting to pluck up the courage to sit down and write to you-'"

Her eyes widened in surprise. Bits and pieces slowly gathered into place before she eventually drew up the proper moment. With her heart in her throat, a mortified hand flew to his side, aiming for his arm, "Roy! You weren't supposed to see that!"

But he caught her wrist and held it gently beneath his grip. A self-satisfied grin remained on his lips, "'You are blessed with the handsomest features I have ever seen on a boy. I find myself lost in the dark depths of your eyes, and more often than not, I am unable to bring my enamored self back up to the surface.' I've always wondered, Riza. Who were you writing to?"

She thought to call him out on the fact that he'd memorized her childhood confession, word for word. Riza debated denying that the answer was as evident as the teasing, heady grin smeared across his still 'handsomest features.' For as surely as Roy knew that dark eyes were an oddity in East where fair hair and light eyes dominated the gene pool, he also knew that young Riza's social circle had been small, minuscule, and otherwise nonexistent save a handful of peers from the local school and her father's apprentice.

_I should like that I was older or you were younger_, she inwardly recalled. _When you leave, I want more to remember you by than wild chamomile buds pressed between the pages of a book or my recollections of our conversations. But the truth is that I wouldn't change anything about the time we've spent together, and if your tutelage here has really come to an end, I believe that fate will bring us together again._

And, indeed, she had been right.

"I-"

With a wavering voice, Riza tried to speak, but the warm pad of Roy's thumb pressed against her bottom lip. Suddenly, his tender grasp on her wrist wasn't enough, and in response, her fingers stretched up then around, tangling the string around their intertwined hands. Emboldened, Roy's palm cupped her cheek, and the woman within the colonel's hardened keeper emerged. As their interlocked hands thrummed with the promise of new possibilities, Riza lost herself in the way his eyes ghosted across her features, seeing something beautiful in the mess they had made of themselves.

It wasn't the golden rays of the early evening sun streaming through the kitchen window that finally got her. And, it certainly couldn't have been the longing look in his dark eyes either. These earthly sensations, Riza could bear. It was his confession, small and insignificant, that rewound the hands of the clock, transcending the mistakes of their intervening years.

"You don't have to answer that," he rasped. "I just wanted you to call me 'Roy' again."

Caught in the space between what was and what could have been, Riza's body cried out for connection. She closed the gap and pressed her forehead against Roy's as her prudent sensibility fell away. His breath quivered; his thumb, still pressed against her mouth, traced the seam of her tender lips. She wanted to kiss him and knew with absolute certainty that he felt the same.

Nevertheless, the leap of faith her soul craved felt more like a hopeless plunge when weighed down with the sins of their past. Undeniably, something bubbled and boiled. A neglected cup overflowed, and Riza startled as a sharp whistle sounded. Like the shots she fired in Ishval, the sound fractured her resolve. Regret pulled her from the embrace of her superior officer, and instantly, reason flooded her system.

The kettle had finally boiled.

* * *

The morning after the commemoration felt pleasantly familiar. Lieutenant Hawkeye effortlessly slipped into her routine, picked up where she left off and breezed through her tasks without a challenge. Her team members behaved as though they never witnessed the taut lines of her shoulders nor the grim countenance she wore through the ceremony. Grateful, she barely noticed the red string at her heels, even when the grip hadn't loosened any more since the previous day.

But when she arrived the following day, the hope for another ordinary day evaded her as she locked gaze on a peculiar item atop her desk. A modest, round vase no larger than her coffee mug sat beside her reports. In it, a few trumpets of the brightest yellow daffodils winked at her from across the room. Instinctively, she reached out to touch the blooming petals.

A small smile formed at the corner of Riza's mouth, and the young officer smiled wistfully at the memory of Elizabeth Hawkeye's extensive book collection. She could still see the dog-eared pages of a particular book in her mind's eye, propped against her knees as she read opposite her father's apprentice in the low light cast by the evening fire. The pretty pictures of the flowers had kept her occupied, and a particular entry, complete with portraits of six-petaled perennials in shades of yellow and white sprang to the forefront of her memory.

_Rebirth and new beginnings_, the book had said._ Daffodils are one of the earliest flowers to bloom in the spring. Their presence is meant to be uplifting and energizing, making this the perfect flower to express one's desire to revive an old relationship._

No sooner than the words formed in Riza's memory than her outstretched hand retracted. Her eyes grew wide, rivaling the size of saucers. She straightened up, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear and used the momentary cover to glance in her superior's direction. Strong and silent, Colonel Mustang seemed no worse for the week's wear. And if there was the slightest hint of pollen on his sleeve, Riza convinced herself she didn't see it, blushing as she spied the lovely blooms throughout the day.

When she walked into the office the next morning, a heavy stack of completed reports under her arm, the daffodils had disappeared. In its place were lavender stems, their fragrance beckoned her from the doorway. Riza approached the delicate sprigs with apprehension as she placed her homework on the desk, carefully not to disturb the vessel. She noticed something near the middle of the vase, a small piece of thread or twine looped around the glass. Too simple to be decorative, but too well-placed to be an accident.

Riza would have known the string anywhere, even if she couldn't have seen one end attached to her finger and the other end tied to Roy Mustang.

"Admirable work, Hawkeye," the colonel stated as he eyed the files on Riza's desk.

Eyes transfixed on the lavender, Riza silently nodded. She braced herself for the inevitable tug of the string, but the heart-wrenching sting that usually accompanied his attentions never came, even as the divine thread tightened around the glass. With a steady inhale, the lieutenant met Mustang's gaze and grinned as she enjoyed the lavender's herbal scent.

"My pleasure, sir, as always," she breathed. The words they shared came easier than ever.

It wasn't until the fifth day that her curiosity won out and led her unceremoniously to Falman's desk. Pulling the topmost drawer where Riza knew the warrant officer kept a binder of pressed flowers and its meaning, she heaved the large collection and flipped through the pages, one by one.

On her desk today were purple, blue, and yellow irises. When she came upon a pressed pink iris, her eyes wandered the page and tripped over Falman's neat handwritten script. Her index finger underlined the word, and her voice followed in soft murmurs to herself, "Iris means..."

"They stand for eloquence and wisdom," a strong voice interjected from behind her.

The young woman pivoted, leaning against the corner of Falman's desk as she took in Roy Mustang's striking figure. She clutched the book gingerly against the decorations pinned to her jacket. His hands were stuffed in his pockets; his back pressed against the outer door frame of his private office. A fringe of unruly raven hair obscured welcoming eyes that Riza was reluctant to meet.

The dim, red thread zigzagged between Riza, Roy and the vase of irises, pulled tight as the tension mounted in their small, otherwise empty office, but the cord slacked with every forward movement as the colonel sauntered toward his lieutenant. He spoke softly, deliberately and (as usual) cryptically.

"Perhaps someone thought you were well-spoken during the meeting yesterday with General Grumman," he mused aloud. The timbre of his voice carried a pleading edge as if Roy had been yearning to let her in on the reason behind his actions. "Perhaps that person realized they weren't doing enough to make their feelings known."

Riza's face flushed when Roy drew near, and she felt a familiar tug at her little finger, lessened by the thread's loop around the vase. Gently, Roy peeled Falman's collection from her hands, easing her grip on the binder with obliging strokes of his thumb. A breath caught in the lieutenant's throat as she reminded herself that they were at work. Someone could walk in at any moment, and conceivably, the prohibition played a small part in the overall thrill.

"They could just tell me, sir," she chanced. Reluctantly, Riza surrendered the binder to Roy, a breathless smile straining the corners of her mouth. "I'd like to think I'm approachable even if I'm a pretty good shot."

With a playful glint in his dark eyes, the colonel continued, shaking his head as he spoke. "It's times like these that make me believe you might need more encouragement. We both know you're much better than 'a pretty good shot.' You see, maybe the things this person wants you to know shouldn't be said out loud. Maybe this person thinks that one day you'll wake up and regret the things you've done to help them."

The string on her little finger pulled yet again, albeit gently, and this time Riza noticed the color had deepened. It was now a rich crimson, draped across the floor and circling the irises, and its ends glowed where it was tied around their fingers. It was the most vivid she had ever seen it.

She clung onto his wistful gaze and saw not the mistakes of their past but of the choices that awaited them. Regret would always be a part of life. Yet, alongside it was a chance to leave the grief behind and let the failures of the bygones take them to a better tomorrow. She coiled the red string into her palm, holding it with conviction. They crumbled, and they rose back up, together.

She smiled at him. A full, sincere smile. "Never, sir. There is no more room for regrets. They belong in the past."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! All likes, reblogs, kudos, comments, and reviews are encouraged and very much appreciated. Visit my tumblr at [flourchildwrites](http://flourchildwrites.tumblr.com) for updates, asks, and anything you’d like to send our way <3


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